


Shows a shifting face

by Beleriandings



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Body Horror, Death, Gen, Goldenhand spoilers, My headcanon about that... incident, Possession, Written for Halloween may i add
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 20:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8342056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: Clariel didn't know why she released the creature; maybe she was reckless, tempting fate. But now, as she lies bleeding, dying, she realises she doesn't want to die after all, and a solution begins to present itself...





	

Clariel stared at the sewn hides and hangings of the tent above her, and knew, for the first time, that she would not survive this.

The realisation came slowly at first; almost gently, even. She let it settle in her mind for just a moment - her mind slowed by pain and the flickering dance of the burner’s light on the inside of the tent, by the bitter, numbing drink that Ylliset had given her for the pain of her wounds - before suddenly it was no longer soft or gentle. Suddenly, the thought rose up like a roaring torrent, a sudden swirling current of panic that threatened to seize her where she lay.

She was going to die? But no, she didn’t want to die. She had thought she had, on some occasions of little hope over the years, but now, confronted with the possibility, it made her skin prickle and her throat convulse with panic. Images flashed past her eyes; blood on the ground, raking claws, a laugh that vibrated like the energy in the air before a storm. Her own rage rising to meet it, blood heating in her veins.

But even that could not save her now.

Clariel felt beads of moisture on her face as a slight breeze tickled her burning skin, though whether it was sweat or tears, she did not know. Her skin felt swollen, too tight, and she tried to cry out desperately, trying to raise her hand and finding all her limbs hopelessly, frighteningly weak. There was a great swath of bandage across her chest and stomach - perhaps more, but that was all she could see for the furs that covered her - but blood stained it, as well as the white shift she was wearing.

 _Too much like those they dressed the dead in in Estwael when she was growing up, what the corpse wore to be burned_ … she whimpered, tears coming once more.

_Curse this weakness._

“There now” came a quiet voice, from somewhere behind Clariel, out of her field of view. She realised she must have flinched as she felt hands gently replacing the furs that wrapped her body. “Try to lie still, it’ll…” a slight pause, a small choking sound. “It’ll help when… ah… it’ll help with the pain.”

 _Oh, yes_ , Clariel thought dimly. _Ylliset was here too, wasn’t she?_ The younger woman’s voice sounded different though, and for a moment, Clariel couldn’t quite place what had changed. Until she could. Ylliset, even when confronted with worst damage to the body, the most hopeless cases, never wavered or spoke with anything other than brisk cheer; it was why she was so favoured as a healer, young though she was. It reassured people, even if they were dying. It made it easier.

Clariel tilted her head effortfully backwards, gazing up at Ylliset’s face in the dim light. Her face was as familiar to Clariel as any here, for Ylliset, the woman who had served her along with serving the village as a healer, was perhaps the closest thing Clariel had had to a friend since she had come amongst the Dnath.

The girl - for she wasn’t much more than a girl really - seemed to adore her, for some inexplicable reason. Clariel had found it irritating at first, but lately she had to admit that Ylliset was no vapid child, and she was actually quite useful. It was even quite endearing, though Clariel still could not quite say she understood why Ylliset cared so much and always had a smile for the strange foreign woman with the scarred face and the shadowed past.

Right now, Ylliset’s smile had fallen from her face. She was squeezing out a cloth, her motions slow and deliberate, but even Clariel could see her hands shaking, the shudder of her shoulders.

And Clariel knew then; that was when she truly knew, that she was going to die.

It must have shown on her face, for Ylliset gently soothed her again, the backs of her fingers trailing gently over Clariel’s scarred cheek.

 _(And where was her mask? Hadn’t she had it before?_ She wondered what Ylliset had done with it.)

“Hush now… hush, my lady.” Ylliset began to hum, and then to sing as she wrung out the cloth, laying it against Clariel’s forehead. Its colddribbled down Clariel’s neck, making her shudder even as it did at least something to sooth the burning of the fever. Ylliset’s voice trembled a little, but it was low and sweet as it always was, and Clariel even recognised the song, a little.

 _Sleep my darling, sei-la-lo,  
_ _Dreams shall hold you, so-la-lei,  
_ _Till nightbirds calling lei-la-so,  
_ _Are sleeping too at break of day._

 _Light and darkness, sei-la-lo,  
_ _Soft and gentle, so-la-lei,  
_ _I shall keep you, lei-la-so,  
_ _Safe until the break of day._

The lullaby ended. Clariel thought Ylliset might begin again, and she did, singing softly under her breath. As the burner flickered, and there was no sound but Ylliset’s soft voice, a strange numbness seemed to creep over Clariel, a strange state of suspension, where she felt almost disconnected from her body.

_Why, almost at peace, even._

She felt herself drift, as though floating in water - _but how could that be? There had been so much blood, her flesh torn by claws as long as her forearm, serrated knife-like teeth and eyes that burned like the after-image of looking into a light too bright_ \- and even as the song coiled on, she began to see another scene, superimposed over Ylliset’s tent around her. A strange, grey river, as far as she could see; but it was difficult to see, as she seemed to be floating in the waters, which swirled around her numbed limbs. Clariel frowned slightly and tried to raise her head for a better look. Or perhaps she only imagined that she did; she was not quite sure that she could actually control her own body. And yet, in that moment that did not disturb her as much as it otherwise would have; she suddenly found that she was not afraid. Even though the grey light was becoming stronger, the reds and browns of the tent fading, even as the sound of Ylliset’s voice began to grow fainter in her ears, replaced by the rush and swirl of water…

_No!_

Clariel blinked, as the thought tugged at her. It was troublesome, needling, entirely at odds with the strange peace that was beginning to fill her.

_No… don’t you see what’s happening here?_

She tried to shake her head, for she did not. She felt thick-headed and slow suddenly, rather than simply freed from cares.

_You’re dying!_

_…What?_

_Fight it!_

_It’s too hard…_

_Don’t you want to live?_ The thought came accompanied by another stab of pain, not in any specific part of her body - she still couldn’t quite _feel_ her body - but rather as if it was a pain in her mind itself, everywhere and nowhere. _Aren’t you afraid?_

 _….A little._ She had to admit that was true. In fact, now she thought of it, she was _more_ than a little afraid; suddenly the thought of the river, the rushing waters around her, made panic spike within her, choking and molten, burning.

… _Yes. Yes, I am afraid._

 _You don’t have to die, not like this, not now_.

She knew the voice spoke the truth. Even as it spoke, she felt pain once more, her body returning even as the light changed once more, fading back to the firelit reds and browns. Perhaps she had never been far away, caught right on the cusp of Life and Death; still, that had been too far, she thought grimly, her eyes snapping open once more. Ylliset was turned away, wringing out the cloth again, but Clariel could still hear her voice. The girl was still singing, but now the sounds no longer lulled; now, it spoke of a call to lie down, to let that strange river take her, stripping Clariel away from her ruined body and from the world and all it held.

And in that moment, that _terrified_ her.

It also made her angry.

Clariel shuddered and gasped, as she felt the rage rise without warning; or rather, it did not fully rise, for once snuffed as quickly as it had kindled. She was too weak for that, she knew, her mind dulled by the sedative and by the pain of her wounds, numbed as it was. But at the sound of Clariel’s distress, Ylliset turned back, immediately stopping her song and dropping her cloth.

“My lady!” She held Clariel’s hand, gently. “Try to lie still…”

There it was, that difference in her tone; Clariel was dying, she realised, and Ylliset was already grieving. Clariel could see the tears on her face.

 _What had they told her about how it had happened_ , Clariel wondered. _A tragic accident?_ She herself might have lied to Ylliset in mercy, if the choice had been hers to make; yet now, though, she was not thinking of that.

For memory had just come flooding back.

A creature, one that had been caught in a silver bottle she had found. Clariel remembered raising her rage, remembered deliberately unwinding the golden wire that had held the stopper firmly in place.

_Had it been curiosity that had made her do it? Defiance? Or simply a hunger for a power she could not, even now, quite forget the taste of?_

It didn’t really matter though, she thought. The only thing that mattered had been what had happened next.

The creature that came from the bottle had eight eyes, all of them burning with a blinding blue-white light, its six insectile arms ending in great claws. When it opened its mouth there were three rows of backward-angled, serrated teeth, the pale yellow of an old bruise. The creature’s hide was pallid white and scaly, streaked with grey, and the hot metal smell of Free Magic rolled off it like a physical force, assaulted her senses, making her eyes, nose and throat burn.

She had held her ground though, her limbs strengthened by the burning energy of her rage; controlled, honed by several years of practice at exerting her will.

Whatever mistakes she had made in the past, she had vowed never to make them again.

She pushed forward, grasping the creature’s claw in a hand, palm already blistering - the others hadn’t done that, some part of her mind noted, this one must be even stronger - and _roared_ , and fought. A name had slipped through the contact, through her arm and up to her mouth, burning her tongue and heating her throat with fire as she spoke it. But there was power in a name, and she relished the flames that scorched her mouth.

_Azagrasir._

When she had spoken the name, the creature had come to a shuddering halt, had bowed, submitted…

No; no that wasn’t right, she remembered dimly. Or rather, it had submitted for a moment, and in that brief instant she had felt a surge of triumph, of raw power.

But only for a moment. Even as she was pushing herself back at it, throwing everything she was at this creature, incandescent rage taking her over with blistering joy. She had done it again, and it had been so easy.

 _Too_ easy, as it happened.

The attack caught her by surprise, just as she was about to complete the binding, her will about to close down over the creature like a steel trap. But before it could close, there came a jolt, a break in her power.

Maybe if she had been expecting it, she would have been able to fight back against it; as it was, the creature pushed back, and it caught her off guard for a moment, breaking her concentration.

That moment was all it took.

Immediately, the creature was pushing back against her defences, suddenly blazing bright in both her vision - filling her field of view, suddenly bowling her over and crushing her with its body, leering down with too many eyes and too many cruel teeth - and in her mind, its presence pushing unbearably, trying to subsume her, to force its way in by sheer brute strength.

“No!” she screamed, out loud. Her rage was receding, she found with horror, replaced by fear. The creature was making a horrible dry gobbling sound, its scaled throat and strangely pearlescent, bulbous chest rippling with it. After a moment, Clariel realised it was laughing, as it held her down easily with one foreleg, its talon resting precisely on the hollow of her throat, breaking the skin just enough so that she felt a tiny, warm drop of blood slide down the side of her neck. Clariel barely breathed; it was an almost impossible effort, keeping her body so still when the rage was still pounding through her, even though it was ebbing. She felt drained, her vision whiting out for a split second before coming back, steeling herself so that she would not flinch even a fraction.

Then something happened that she had not been expecting. With a final rattling chuckle, the creature drew back, its claw and its pressure on her mind both receding. Cautiously, Clariel blinked, sitting up and rubbing the front of her throat, her fingers coming away sticky with blood.

She watched the creature warily, and it did what she could only describe as grinning at her, its serried ranks of teeth protruding.

“What will you do, berserk?” came a voice, like wet sand and the screams of the dying. It sounded only in her head, but she expected this by now. “How far will you go?” As it spoke, the creature turned its head through a whole three-quarters of a circle, towards the nomads’ settlement behind them, in the lee of the rocky bluffs. “And what would it take to make you dance?”

Clariel felt anger flare once more, fuelled by her own shame; she had started this, she had released it; how dare this creature mock her, let alone threaten the Dnath village that had taken her in when she was on her own after Marral died, several years ago?

But no, that wasn’t it; the creature was also playing with her, and that could not be borne.

She raised her hands, her teeth bared as the anger coursed through her once more, and she charged. But the creature leapt delicately aside, springing back to land on four of its six limbs, bony barbs clacking against the stoney ground.

 _Until moments later, when they were tearing into her skin, slicing through flesh, and there was hot blood on the ground, and she was falling, falling in a sea of pain as the redness faded to dark behind her eyes_ …

With the very last of the strength left to her, she surged forward once more, her own crimson blood staining pallid scales, her muscles tearing with the last desperate strength the pain brought her.

A struggle, that seemed unending; a test of wills, Clariel’s pain set against the blazing power of the creature. _If she was going to die anyway, she could at least have her vengeance, take it down with her_ …

And then it broke, the barrier of the creature’s will snapping before her like a thread. It took her by surprise, and with her last thoughts before the world turned black, she thought perhaps that this is what it felt like to die.

She had been wrong though; she knew that, now that she really was dying.

For Clariel’s body had held on, and she had woken - or half woken, whatever one might call this dreamlike state in between Life and Death - here in the tent with Ylliset, the pain wrapping itself around her, the sedative addling her head as Ylliset’s song wound her tight, soothed her into a soft and gentle death as the woman cooled her burning brow. The creature was gone, Clariel was safe now, but she didn’t feel it, desperately clinging on to the fine thread of life, her last feeling the heat of tears on her face.

**_But does it have to be the last, little one?_ **

Clariel turned her head, her awareness suddenly rattling through her once more.

Ylliset hadn’t stopped singing, and that had not been Clariel’s own voice that had spoken.

**_No, no it wasn’t. You know I’m here_. **

A faint outline at the tear-blurred edge of her vision, like the bright after-image of a light. “ _H-how_ are you here?” she tried to ask.

She was uncertain whether her lips had actually moved at all, but the creature seemed to understand her intent, for it gave a grudging, bitter chuckle. **_You bound me, remember? As long as you live, I am bound to your will_. **

Clariel tried to frown. Was this real? Or just some delusion? She peered at Ylliset surreptitiously, but she seemed to have noticed nothing out of the ordinary. “So you want me to die, then? It’s in your interest.”

The creature said nothing.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

Nothing.

“Answer me! I… I _command_ you to answer me!”

The bright shape became clearer, shifting into focus. Clariel tried not to wince, as the creature loomed over her, seeming to leer down in anticipation. **_Time will have its way. Soon enough, I will be free again. But for now you amuse me._**

Clariel gritted her teeth. As soon as she slipped away into that grey river, the creature would be freed from the bond she had apparently placed on it, even as her blood had spilled upon the ground.

And what would it do then? Grow strong by drinking Clariel’s blood, then Ylliset’s like as not, then rampage through the village, killing all in its path?

And did Clariel have a responsibility to prevent that?

Right now, she couldn’t answer that question; there was only one concern in her mind.

She was going to die.

And in that moment, she wanted nothing more than to live. Her life had not been much, it was true, but it had been _life_ ; she had had freedom - of a sort - and power and strength had been hers. If she lived, she could leave this place before it chained her down, put her mask on again as she chose and make her own path, leave it all behind her. But if she was dead, her body would rot in the ground, even as the cold river carried her on its cold, inexorable course, towards… well, she had no idea, and that frightened her for a moment, until it didn’t; after a mere second, it began to make her angry.

How _dare_ the river try to take her where she would not go? Her physical body might be torn beyond repair, but she could still burn and rage and fight until either she succumbed anyway, or she prevailed. She thought harder. _There was something, something she could do, there had to be_ …

A quiet, mocking snicker in her head, from off to one side.

Clariel turned her head. _The creature!_ She felt herself smile, triumphantly. It would know what she could do, how she could save herself, she was sure of it. She swallowed.

“Azagrasir” she said, unsure whether she was speaking aloud or not; it barely mattered though, as again the creature seemed to hear her perfectly well. Its name - or perhaps just the sound of her voice - had power over it, it seemed, as when she spoke to it directly its spine straightened convulsively, its many-jointed neck twisting around to face her in shuddering halts. Clearly, it was unwilling to obey her, yet had no choice but to listen.

**_What would you have me do…?_ **

“Azagrasir,” she said again, licking her lips - they were painfully cracked and tasted a little of some strange, chalky medicinal concoction - “Tell me what I must do, to live.”

**_Nothing you can do, now. The river takes all such fragillings who think themselves sorcerers like you, in the end. Sooner or later it’ll have you, and when it does…_ **

“You lie.”

The creature made a sound that was either a growl of scorn or a pained laugh, quickly dissolving into a choke, as Clariel’s words had been infused with all the power she could muster. “What must I do?”

**_You could take the body of another._ **

Clariel’s heart skipped a little. “What do you mean?”

 ** _You humans with your skin that tears so easily, bones that shatter, blood that spills, such a pretty red_ …** the creature giggled horribly, as if the thought of such mutilation delighted it. **_You need your bodies to live in, and yours is broken and ripped, poor weak thing… but if found a new one, you could carry on living_. **

“A new… body?” Clariel was more than a little disturbed by the thought. “Where would I get one, though? If you’re lying to me…”

 ** _It is no lie_** , said Azagrasir. **_And as for where to get one… well, are they not all around? There are humans crawling everywhere across this earth, you can simply pick a new body, just as you like. It’s down to your pleasure, Mistress._** This last sounded extremely sarcastic to Clariel, whose patience was wearing thin even as she felt her time running out. Azagrasir’s smile widened, its mouth filled with too many teeth, as it turned its head. **_Why, there’s a lovely one right there_.**

Clariel followed its gaze, her eyes widening a little as she saw Ylliset, her back turned for a moment as she knelt to feed the burner, her poker making the flames dance, spitting sparks. She was still singing, softly and under her breath.

“…Ylliset?” Clariel’s eyes widened.

 ** _Well, why not? Unless you want to simply let me free_** \- Azagrasir leered, rising up on its hindmost four limbs - **_so that I can rip her limbs off_.** The bright imprint of a hooked claw skirted along the skin at the back of Ylliset’s neck, the strip of brown skin that was visible between the thick, wrapped braid of her hair and the furred collar of her tunic. **_Oh, but she looks like so much fun to play with! And what a lovely singing voice! Though I’d so much prefer to hear her scream…_**

Clariel gritted her teeth, trying not to let her horror show, even as her vision began to narrow. _Could she really… no, why was she even considering this?_ Taking someone else’s body, her autonomy, it was despicable, it was worse than… well, anything she had ever faced or heard of before.

And it would mean killing Ylliset, and Clariel couldn’t do that.

 ** _Not with that attitude you can’t!_** Azagrasir sounded horrible cheerful. **_But then, I suspected you were weak. Still, I had hoped you would be more fun… I’m almost disappointed!_**

“No… I can’t…” whispered Clariel, even as she felt tears ooze from her eyes, burning tears. She felt so helpless, the words weak as brittle twigs. “I can’t, I can’t, I…”

“My lady…?”

Clariel started; it seemed this time she truly _had_ spoken aloud, for the first time, for Ylliset was turning hastily back to her, lines of worry creasing her young, innocent face.

“Ylliset…” murmured Clariel, staring up into the girl’s eyes. Ylliset tucked a stray whisp of hair behind her ear that had fallen from the thick looping braid wrapped tight about her head.

“What? What do you need?” Ylliset took Clariel’s hand in both of hers, strong fingers holding Clariel’s weak ones with exquisite gentleness. Ylliset’s hands were so _warm_ , too; Clariel hadn’t realised quite how cold her own skin had grown until she touched them.

 _Warm and filled with life as blood pulsed through arteries and veins beneath the surface, even as Clariel’s own heart began to tick out its final beats_ …

“My lady? My lady!”

Clariel blinked furiously. Every moment she stopped to think, to consider, she was losing her hold on the living world. “Ylliset… If I asked…” she mumbled dreamily, “what would you do for me?”

“ _Anything_ ” said Ylliset, immediately and vehemently. Her rounded cheeks were shiny with tears in the firelight. “I’d do anything you asked me to…”

Clariel’s heart contracted. “What… what would you give to me, if I needed it to survive?”

Ylliset’s face creased a little more in a frown. “Anything you needed, if it was in my power to give it” she said, one hand stroking Clariel’s cheek. “You know that I…” Ylliset’s face crumpled, her voice cracking on a sob. “I have grown to love… I mean… lately… I don’t know how I would live without you now, my lady…” Ylliset’s voice dissolved in tears. “I would do anything it took if only I could help you!”

Clariel’s heart hardened in her chest, and then she felt something within her crack in half. She drew a breath, looking between Azagrasir and Ylliset. “Azagrasir…” she whispered. “Tell me how.”

**_There is an incantation. You must say it after me._ **

“Very well.” Clariel felt a flicker of nervousness. “But if you try to trick me, know that my retribution will be swift and terrible.”

The creature inclined its head in assent.

“What?” asked Ylliset, her brow furrowing as she looked all around the tent, clutching Clariel’s hand even tighter. “My lady, I don’t understand…”

“You will” said Clariel, determinedly meeting Azagrasir’s gaze as the creature grinned - too wide, once more - and began to chant.

The words, as Clariel repeated them in her cracked and broken voice, were full of Free Magic, burning and blistering her mouth, making the taste of blood rise up in her throat. As she spoke, she kept hold of Ylliset’s hand, even as the girl half tried to draw it away, doubt now edging into those wide brown eyes as Clariel sat straight up amongst the piled furs, where only moments ago she had been too weak to move.

“My lady, what are you…” Ylliset pulled at her hand, real fear setting in as the words fumed and cascaded from Clariel’s mouth in choking white smoke. But Clariel had her hand in a grip of iron now, Free Magic coursing through her veins along with the rage that was rising in her once more, giving her strength to do what must be done.

It occurred to Clariel as she was chanting that Azagrasir might be expecting this to kill her; it would certainly be in its interest to do so, for then it would be free once more… wouldn’t it? But still, Clariel did not stop, for this wasn’t like before. She simply had no other option, for even if these words were to burn her to a husk, she would surely have died of her wounds anyway.

But here was a chance that she might _live_. Soon, her own voice, her endless chant of power, twined around her and rose up, wrapping her and Ylliset in bonds. It rang loud enough in Clariel’s ears to drown out Ylliset’s tearful gasps and cries of fear as well as the voice in her own head, the small weak one that protested that this was _wrong_.

That voice must be buried, she knew, as harsh white light began to blaze and twine about their hands, already joining them inextricably even if Clariel had changed her mind and tried to let go.

It was too late to change her mind now though. She must bury the impulse to do that, and bury it deep.

Her vision started to go white at the edges, but not the dull, insipid grey-white of the river; this white was blazing, powerful, and soon became a whorl of Free Magic fire that filled the whole tent, blinding her so that after a moment she could barely see Ylliset’s face, inches from her own. Then she couldn’t even see that anymore, and she was glad of it, for her last glimpse of Ylliset’s face was a twisted mask of horror. Clariel was left alone, with only the roaring in her ears and the burning smell of Free Magic.

Then the pain began.

A great, tearing pain, as though her whole body was being ripped down the middle, broken from the inside out and stretched too far.

Then, without warning, it was gone.

She fell back, weak and panting and nauseous, with her heart fluttering in her throat. Something had gone wrong, she thought at first, with instinctive dread in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t see anything, her eyes still blinded by the afterimage of the Free Magic maelstrom, and in panic she reached up into the blackness to claw at her face, to tear at her hair.

…Her fingers met with a face that was smooth, rather than scored and pitted with scars, and hair that was thick and curling and looped about her head in a long braid.

Clariel froze, even as her vision began to clear.

She gasped at the sight that she saw.

Her own body lay there before her, a pale, fresh corpse with scarred skin blotched by sickness, lank and greasy black hair, wounds bleeding through thick linen bandages and half covering in rumpled and thrown-off furs.

She herself though, was holding its pale, cold hand in her own.

She held up her hands before her; her fingers were a little thicker than before, callused and brown. She touched her face, very gingerly.

It was not the face she knew, the face of the dead girl lying on the ground in the tent.

She smiled, then, a great, triumphant, cruel smile.

“Azagrasir?”

_“Yes, I am here.”_

She smiled even wider. “You have done well.”

The creature bowed its way into her line of sight, inclining its head once more. It was apparently speaking out loud now, Clariel noted, rather than simply in her head. She wondered what that meant. _“An easy trick, that. Human bodies really are such fragile containers. Why, you could do this as many times as you liked, in theory…”_ it smirked. _“If you are strong enough, that is.”_

“Indeed?” mused Clariel, cradling her own corpse, and scrutinising the face. “What about this?” She felt a momentary stab of doubt and horror, looking into her own dead face, but quashed it almost as soon as she because aware of it. “Is there… anything I must do?” She tried to restrain the excitement that was coursing through her as she flexed her new fingers; she felt strong, more than anything. _With a new body, she could do many things, go to many places, the possibilities really were endless… she could even return to the Kingdom, the Great Forest, the world she had known._

Suddenly - with a twist of mingled fear and excitement - she remembered the bells under Mount Aunden, the ones she had left there in the dark, for she had not known then that she was strong enough to wield them. They had frightened her then, but perhaps now, looking at them with new eyes, they would look different.

_And if this body wore out or failed, torn or broken or corroded by Free Magic, well… Ylliset hadn’t been too hard to persuade, had she?_

_Very easy to persuade, in fact. She agreed to it with her whole heart_ , Clariel told herself. _She practically offered herself._

_Besides, Ylliset wouldn’t have used this body for any very great things, would she?_

As much to quiet the troublesome voice at the back of her head as in for any other reason, she repeated her previous question. “What about… this?” She gestured at her old body, rapidly turning pale as the white linen shift Ylliset had dressed her in, over her bandages. She was determined not to be tricked by the creature; not this time. If there was anything else that remained to be done, to secure her hold over it and her new body, then she would surely do it.

“ _There is one more thing”_ said Azagrasir with another toothy smile. _“You must make a tomb, set spells upon it to protect your original body. Better to bind a little of your spirit to it too, to truly make yourself impossible to kill.”_

“Bind a little of my spirit to it?”

 _“Yes.”_ That grin again. _“I would advise choosing a piece you’re not using.”_

Clariel smiled too at that, grimly. She got to her feet and looked around, bent and picked up her mask which lay in the corner of the room, securing it over her new face, and threw her furs about her shoulders. Then she lifted the corpse, cradling it in her new, strong arms. “I think I know just which piece to use.

**Author's Note:**

> \- That very telling extra part of her backstory in Goldenhand filled me with too many emotions, I had to write this to deal with them. (...and also to correct my previous fic, "Of Bonds Broken", on the subject of Clariel's return to Free Magic, which is now not canon-compliant. But this should be!)
> 
> \- The title is a line from the song "The Morrigan" by Heather Dale, which is one I associate heavily with Chlorr and also with Clariel's transformation into her.


End file.
